Study: Yes, Obamacare Will Raise Premiums Significantly

Let’s begin with a new claim from a man who is pathologically incapable of telling the truth about the new healthcare law:

“Not only are premiums lower than they were, they’re lower than the most optimistic predictions.” —President Obama on Obamacare

That (quasi) presidential tweet actually contains two wondrous assertions. Let’s unpack each one. First of all — I’m struggling to remember — what did the “most optimistic predictions” look like again?

Premium decreases of $2,500 per family, per year — compared to pre-“reform” costs. So premiums are not lower than the president’s most optimistic predictions. Not even close. Are premiums lower “than they were” before the law went into effect? Nope. They haven’t been so far, nor will they be, post-full implementation. Also, overall national health spending will increase by hundreds of billions more than it would have without the “Affordable” Care Act. And yet, HHS released new data on premium costs with great fanfare earlier today, pretending that most people will be paying less. Health policy analysts at the Manhattan Institute have crunched the numbers, and debunked the administration’s happy-talk spin. Avik Roy explains: